


It's Only Natural

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25040371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Person A has to come into Person B’s changing room and help them out of a particularly tight pair of pants. A post season 11 quarantine fic.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	It's Only Natural

It’s only natural, she tells herself. Quarantine meant lazy eating and half-hearted exercise plans that often ended up with a ‘full body workout’ (a Mulder euphemism) that, while vigorous, and (extremely) enjoyable, did not burn calories the way an hour cross-fit class might.

“You wound me, Scully,” he’d said, the first time she scolded him for cajoling her into their bed instead of the living room for a stretch and tone. His armoury included a wicked pout of his glistening lips, a lascivious wink and a wander of his fingertips along the ridge of each abdominal muscle. As she came a second time, she’d promised herself she would remove all carbs for a week. At least.

The denim slid up okay. She wiggled. She waggled. She shimmied and she jiggled. And then the jeans were up, snug at her lower back, moulded to her ass. The button was challenging but she supposed arthritis in one’s fingers was normal at her age, and the fabric hadn’t had a chance to stretch. She smoothed down the legs so the creases softened. Of course, they were too long.

Bending down to fix the stupid ruffles at her ankles was the moment she realised something was wrong. Not in the bee-sting kind of way, but in the too many just one more spoonful kind of way.

“All right in there, Scully?” he asked, nose peeking through the gap in the curtain. And she’d sent him away with a flap of her hand.

So here she is. Dana Scully, former FBI agent, scientist. Fucking. Doctor. Stuck in a pair of skinny jeans. When clearly SHE ISN’T SKINNY. The changing room is becoming claustrophobic, pressing against her limbs as she tries to undo the button and manoeuvre the pants back down. She stands up straight. Breathes. Looks in the mirror to find herself. She sees an angry old woman. Who the hell puts fluorescent strips over the mirror? Her skin is ghostly. Her hair is the rusty side of copper. A strip of silvery roots shines. Yes, SHINES. She rubs her cheeks, squeezes her eyes shut. Looks again. But nothing has changed. She could use some of Mulder’s effervescent optimism.

She turns away from the traitorous glass, shakes her hips side to side and tries to slip the jeans over the swell of her stomach but they refuse to budge.

It’s only natural. Weight gain in middle age, during menopause, is normal. It’s typical. She’s no different to any other fifty-six-year-old. Except she’s an FBI agent, a scientist, a fucking doctor. She rewrote Einstein. Yet she can’t take a pair of jeans off. She hooks her thumbs down the sides and yanks, but the jeans hold firm.

It’s only fucking natural. Rage boils in the pit of her fat gut. She stabs at the flab there. Turns back to the mirror and makes a smiley face from her navel. Does a Mulder impression. Do you think I’m spooky?

“Scully?”

“I’m fine,” she snaps.

“Right. How do they look?”

Her ass is certainly lifted by the confines of the material. From the back, she looks pretty good. But the bulge over the waistband and the ridiculously long legs make her look like a circus freak. Are there even circus freaks any more? She remembers The Enigma from that bizarre case years ago and briefly entertains becoming the ‘Dr Dana the Denim-clad Muffin Top’ for the rest of her years. Because she is never going to be able to extract herself from these pants. People might pay. There’s a porn site for every fetish.

“They’re a bit tight,” she says, wriggling again to no avail. Her sigh sounds like a fighter jet launching.

Mulder’s whole head appears through the curtains. “Ooh, hot.”

Not helpful. Not in the least. She exhales sharply and he pulls a face in response. But he doesn’t leave. “I need a bigger size.” It cuts to say it. Slashes. She’s bleeding out. Not in the heart being extracted by a psychic surgeon kind of way.

“I’ll get some for you.”

Fucking typical. He’s not even going to ask why. What is it with men? Don’t they get it? She’s known Mulder how long? Long enough for him to understand how hard it is for her to admit something like that. The least he could do is offer some comfort. “Fine.”

He leaves. Then comes back straight away. “It’s not fine though, is it, Scully?”

Fucking typical. Now the psychologist comes out. “I’m fine.”

“You didn’t say, I’m fine. You said, it’s fine. There’s a difference.” Are you shitting me? This is not how she likes her Mulder. “I’m feeling there’s something going on here but I haven’t quite worked it out.”

Before she can blast him out for his lack of investigative skills, he’s inside the changing room. There’s barely enough oxygen for one but with him in the tiny space she’s suffocating. He’s looking down on her. On to her shiny fucking roots. Her protruding gut. Her comedically short legs. Embarrassment leaves a red streak across her cheeks. Breathing hurts. Not just because the waistband of the jeans is digging in to her skin, but because her chest is tight with humiliation.

“I can’t get them off,” she whispers.

“What?” His face is so close to hers, she can feel his cheekbone scrape against her skin. Because of course he hasn’t put on an ounce of fat over the years. Just a bulk of muscle. And she’s not going to complain about that. But if he laughs. If he so much as cracks that beautiful fucking face of his…

She looks down at the floor. “I can’t get the jeans off. They’re…stuck.” Tears burn in her eyes and she feels doubly stupid. A fat old woman trying on a pair of too-small jeans and then CRYING about it.

“Hey,” he croons, lifting her chin with a gently finger. “We’ll figure it out.”

She shakes her head. The tears fly loose. She sniffs, cuffing the wet away with the heel of her hand and takes a ragged breath in. How dare he be so fucking understanding. “I’m fat, Mulder,” she says, leaning into his shoulder.

“No you’re not,” he says, kissing the top of her greying head. “You’re just giving me more to handle.” She slumps against him, half laughing then dissolving into tears again. “There’s always been too much of you for me, Scully. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

She bumps her head against his shoulder, then lifts her face to him. “These jeans are not just too small, they’re too long. They might even fit your chicken legs.”

His eyes slide down to the floor and he chuckles chestily. “I can’t believe how often I forget just how short you are, Scully. Because, as I said, you’ve always seemed so much bigger to me.”

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“Yes, you’re figuratively enormous. Huge.” He slips his fingers down the back of the jeans and wriggles his wrists.

“Vast, gigantic,” she says, jiggling with his movements. The waistband stretches over her hips and with a pop slips under her buttocks, taking with it, her underwear.

“Impressive, grand,” he murmurs, pulling away from her as the pants fold open over her upper thighs and slide, along with the pale blue panties, down to her knees, “wholly magnificent.”

She’s bare before him. Not in a what are they, Mulder? way, but in a literal, naked-from-the-waist-down-in-a-changing-room-way. And the way he’s looking at her, the light in his eyes, the slight part in his lips, the want, everything else fades to nothing. There’s no sales assistant asking politely at the curtain if everything’s okay. There’s no security camera on the ceiling flashing a red intrusive eye at them. There’s no greys, no lines, no layers of quarantine fat. There’s just him and her and love.

It’s only natural, she thinks. And leans up to kiss his fat lips.


End file.
